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Free Community Mariachi Celebration Returns July 26
BY SARAH SHAW Festival Focus Writer
Building on the tremendous success of last summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School brings back its three-day Mariachi Workshop culminating in a free community concert at 5:30 p.m. on July 26 at the Benedict Music Tent. The lead sponsor of the workshop and community concert is Querencia Private Golf & Beach Club.
A pre-concert fiesta beginning at 4 p.m. on the Karetsky Music Lawn will include food and drinks from Taqueria El Yaqui and Señor Mango, and booths and activities from community partners: the Pitkin County and Basalt Regional Libraries, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen Family Connections, Buddy Program, English in Action, Family Resource Center—Roaring Fork Schools, Latinx House, the Art Base, and Valley Settlement.
As one of the many family-friendly summer offerings of the Festival, the Mariachi Workshop is an exten- sion of the AMFS’s music education programs offered in schools from Aspen to Glenwood Springs. “Bringing the Mariachi Workshop to the Roaring Fork Valley has been a long-standing dream of ours,” says AMFS Dean of Education and Community Heather Kendrick.
During the school year, the AMFS’s Education and Community team runs weekly after-school and in-school music education programming throughout the valley. More than 400 students participate in programs ranging from beginning strings to choir. “We are boots on the ground,” Kendrick continues. “When we learned from band directors and our teaching artists that introducing mariachi would be a natural extension of our program, it made sense to fulfill that community need.”
Last summer, the Mariachi Workshop launched with 35 participating students. With the additional funding provided by lead sponsor Querencia—a private, masterplanned community in Los Cabos, Mexico, where cultural experiences and philanthropy are encouraged—the program is now able to accommodate more than twice as many students. This summer, 85 middle and high school students have registered and there’s a waiting list.
Educators from the valley are invited to work alongside a team of statewide mariachi teaching specialists, with a longterm goal of developing more support and training for local music teachers so they can start programs in their own schools, explains Education and Community Coordinator Veronica Lopez. “Professional development and family assistance are a large part of the ongoing mission for these programs,” she says.
To that end, events for parents are also built into the curriculum of the three-day workshop. “We want families to meet our guest artists and teachers, learn what students are doing, and how they can support them,” says Lopez. “We’ve heard from so many families about their memories of growing up with this music.”
Incorporating time for families to tell their own stories about mariachi was paramount to this year’s event. Calling it an “intergenerational conversation around mariachi music and culture,” participants and their families are invited on stage during workshop sessions to share their experiences with mariachi music. “It is a special tender moment for parents and community members,” says Lopez. Mariachi specialists from around the state—such as Isahar Mendez-Flores, program director of the Colorado Youth Mariachi Program—are on hand to help students learn everything from fundamentals to performance techniques and teach them how to play traditional instruments like the guitarrón and vihuela. “It’s a process that makes the educational experience that much richer for the students,” Kendrick says.
The workshop culminates in a free community concert at the Benedict Music Tent that includes a student performance and performances by Denver-based Mariachi Sol de Mi Tierra and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico. Kendrick’s excitement for the program is palpable. “Last year, we had all the families on stage, dancing and singing together. It was just such a beautiful feeling to see so many friends and families from so many different backgrounds interacting and having a good time together.”
